Robert Taylor Dodd Jr.

Robert Taylor Dodd Jr. was born on Fordham Road in the Bronx, July 11, 1936, to Edith Gwendolyn Dodd, homemaker, and Robert T. Dodd Sr., engineer. The small family moved to Teaneck, New Jersey when Bob was four years old. A talented student and musician as a child, Bob was a valedictorian of his high school class of 1954 and attended Cornell University, majoring in geosciences.  After graduation, he and his long-time sweetheart, Marya Jo Roof, married in Teaneck and started their long life together.

Continuing his education as a newlywed, Bob attended Princeton University for graduate school.  For his dissertation, he took on the challenge of mapping the geological structures of one of his favorite childhood haunts, Bear Mountain, in Harriman State Park, New York. As he worked on his research he stayed on site at a group camp he eventually helped to nurture for many years, Camp Trexler.  After earning his PhD in Geology, Bob served in the Air Force until 1965.  Notably, he worked on a project for the Apollo 11 mission: determining the geologic texture of the surface of the Moon. He resigned his commission to enter academia as one of the founding members of the newly formed Earth and Space Sciences department at SUNY Stony Brook, where he was a professor for over 35 years. He and Marya raised their three children in a home they built in Port Jefferson, New York.

During his long and distinguished career, Bob taught students in courses that ranged from basic  science requirements to graduate-level studies in geoscience.  He mentored PhD students as they made their way through the program at Stony Brook, many entering academia themselves.  A talented lecturer and natural teacher, Bob infused his courses with humor and erudition, making even the most complex discussions interesting and engaging.  That humor carried over into his writing, and he published several books on meteorites, his academic specialty, as well as fiction, his passion.  Bob also published several short stories in national magazines like The Saturday Evening Post.

Travel was another passion, and throughout his life Bob took both personal and professional trips to Germany, England, France, Iceland, Denmark and across the United States, most often with Marya by his side. With their three young children, he and Marya spent a sabbatical year in Heidelberg, Germany in 1972-73; many of the stories from that trip still are told at family gatherings.  Bob’s love of the natural world, and his professional relationship to his mentor, Pep Wheeler, caused him to fall in love with the Adirondacks, a love affair he passed on to his children and grandchildren.  No trip would be complete without music; Bob and Marya most often made time in their travels to experience performances in the different places they traveled to.  At home, ever the musician himself, Bob could be heard whistling beautiful melodies from the classical music he loved, and just as often could be seen conducting along with whatever he was listening to.  Later in his life, as travels became less easy, he and Marya would take summer day trips to see rehearsals and performances at nearby Tanglewood.

Bob was a talented and accomplished gardener all of his adult life.  He would plant seeds in the late winter, coaxing them into seedlings and plants under bright lights in the basement, then cultivating  magnificent gardens full of flowers, fruits and vegetables.  The acre on which he and Marya spent the last 25 years of their lives together was his pride and joy, as summers saw the riotous colors of marigolds, dahlias, zinnias, hydrangeas, cosmos, and others.  His “victory gardens” were replete with zucchini, eggplant, beans, peppers, pattypans, jerusalem artichokes, sometimes even corn. He worked tirelessly on his lawn, only slowing down his mowing in the last few years (but still mowing a good chunk even then).  He insisted on doing much of his own snow removal in winter as well, much to the chagrin of his daughters.  As Marya began to show signs of what eventually was diagnosed as Alzheimer’s disease, Bob stepped up his household responsibilities, caring tirelessly for her until the end of his life.  Bob was diagnosed with late-stage pancreatic cancer on October 13, 2024 and died just three weeks later, on November 3.  He passed peacefully in his sleep, with Marya sleeping at his side.  He was 88 years old.

Bob is survived by his wife of 66 years, Marya, son Robert, daughters Melissa (David) Coombs and Amy Scatenato, eight grandsons (Robert, Ian, Christopher, Anthony, Luke, Nathaniel, Ryan and Dominic) and one granddaughter (Molly).  He also had one great-grandson, Leo.  “Opa” taught us that the world is small and the universe is vast, he made us laugh with his razor-sharp wit and unique sense of humor, and he was a model for how to hold onto what is right in a world that often rewards the opposite.  He will be missed endlessly by all who loved him so dearly.

A memorial service will be officiated by Reverend John Thompson on December 27, 2024, at 2:00pm from The Church of St. John's in the Wilderness, in Copake Falls.